LockBox Computing: 25 Free Tools To Encrypt Literally Everything
It’s not breaking news that hackers can easily figure out how to gain access to unsecured information on your system–emails, chat sessions, phone calls, and files are all vulnerable. What many people don’t know is that there are a number of free tools available that make it easy to fight back. Protect your valuable information with these encryption tools.
Instant Messaging:
- IMsecure: Keep your IM conversations private with IMsecure’s message encryption.
Passwords:
- Password Encryption: Save your passwords in this encrypted file. With this tool, you’ll only need to remember one password to get into the software.
- RoboForm: Encrypt your passwords with a master password and defeat keyloggers by avoiding having to type passwords into a keyboard. You can even create profiles for different members of a household.
VoIP:
- Zfone: Paul Zimmerman’s Zfone allows you to make encrypted phone calls online. It’s available as a plugin for existing VoIP clients and can be integrated by developers in VoIP applications.
Remote Access:
- OpenVPN: Get secure VPN, WiFi, remote access and more with this solution. You’ll need to use the OpenSSL cryptographic library with OpenVPN.
Email:
- Private Post Desktop: This email encryption software makes it easy to send secure email. Your recipient will need a free reader to open emails.
- Stunnel: This universal SSL wrapper encrypts POP, IMAP, LDAP, and other emails without changing the daemon’s code. You’ll need to use OpenSSL with this tool.
- Packman: With Packman, you can encrypt email and attachments as well as files on private servers.
- Freenigma: To encrypt web-based email, use Freenigma. It’s a free Firefox plugin, and it supports systems like Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail.
Chat:
- TrilogyEC: Encrypt chat, IM and file transfers with TrilogyEC. This tool can be used to chat with up to 5 people at a time.
Communications:
- OpenSSL: This toolkit implements the secure sockets layer and transport layer security as well as a cryptography library.
- OpenSSH: Eliminate the risk of eavesdropping, connection hijacking and password transmission with this tool.
- GnuPG: The GNU Privacy Guard secures data and communications with advanced encryption. You can also use it to create digital signatures.
- Tor: Tor anonymizes your Internet communications, including web browsing, web publishing, IM, chat, SSH and more.
Files:
- FileVault: Create self extracting and self decrypting files. The recipient doesn’t need any software to open these files, just a password.
- TrueCrypt: Use TrueCrypt to create a virtual encrypted disk that provides numerous levels of protection. This software is supported in Windows Vista, XP, 2000, and Linux.
- AxCrypt: With AxCrypt, you can encrypt, compress, decrypt, wipe, view, and edit files quickly and easily. This software works with most Windows versions.
- Kruptos: Use Kruptos to encrypt files on your PC or a portable storage device. With this tool, you can also create files that self-decrypt.
Hard Drive:
- CryptoExpert: Secure virtual hard drives on your machine with this software. You can password protect the drives and encrypt any files you put in them.
Text:
- fSekrit: fSekrit encrypts text into its own file, which can then be run off of a USB drive or other storage. This ensures that you’ll never have to store this data un-encrypted on your hard disk.
- Silver.Zero: With Silver.Zero, you can encrypt text in three different ways.
- PlainText Crypto: Turn text files into a sequence of digits with PlainText Crypto. This can also be used for emails.
Data:
- Data Scrambler: DataScrambler turns data into a scrambled bitmap file with the MD5 algorithm. When using this program, you’ll need to set your own password and share it with recipients.
- PixelCryptor: Use this encryption tool to encrypt and decrypt data through an image.
Various:
- Xidie Security Suite: This security suite combines steganography, stretch image, noise, and more.
While there are certainly some superior products on the market that aren’t free, for the needs of the average person the 25 tools highlighted in this article will provide more than enough encryption and protection to ensure the secure transmission of information.
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October 10th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
I disagree with that comment,
Yes some of the encryption that relies on large prime number pairs to encrypt files may become redundant, that is not all encryption is.
Some of the tools above hide data in different and unexpected locations, others use steganography to obfuscate where data is actually being saved.
Encryption is not just using one given process to hide data it is the process of transforming information to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, which can be keys, but are not necessarily. As information is becoming more and more of a commodity, the investment to keep it private will become greater, and new and different ways to enforce this secrecy will prevail.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Take a number theory class at your closest research university, then read Applied Cryptography. Then take a computational mathematics class. Then you can make an intelligent statement about how good large prime numbers are.
Seriously, there are volumes written on how it’s secure ASSUMING that no better way to factor numbers is found. It’s not secure assuming that computers don’t get faster… And in any case, that’s only public key cryptography anyways. And it’s more an illustration of the ideas anyways. Now a lot of people use elliptic curve cryptography for stuff like that anyways. Obviously, you have to be fairly careful about stuff, but face it: If your secrets are that important, you probably need to hire (or become!) a professional consultant of some sort to set up mechanisms to protect you from all the things we’re considering here, rather than an ad-hoc setup from a blog post. (sorry… that’s probably offensive, but at least somewhat true.)
Furthermore…. If you really do have secrets, you’re far more likely to get physically harmed than have your cryptosystem broken, as long as you put your trust in peer-reviewed protocols, algorithms, and use decently strong passwords.
Just my 2 cents.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:26 am
fsekrit and roboform is my all time favorites. have been using it for quite a long time already. simple yet powerful tools, they are.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:00 am
is there something like FileVault for the mac … ???
October 11th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Dont forget true crypt, which allows you to create encrypted partitions, and store data in them like on a regular drive.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Travis is obviously a NSA plant
October 11th, 2007 at 5:16 am
For users of Gaim/Pidgin there is Pidgin-Encryption. It is a plug-in that will encrypt your conversation with other users that have the plug-in installed. Windows, Linux and Mac.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:41 am
TrueCrypt is the best encryption software I’ve ever used. Just create encrypted volume with its easy wizard and then put all your important files there. That’s it. You only have to remember one password.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Nice post!
Thanks for taking the time to build it! I’ve been using TrueCrypt and RoboForm for a long time and they’re GREAT tools. I did a setup with some Portable apps on a memory-key and solved all my security problems when using “corporate” notebooks, while still able to deal with my own “private” content.
I’m going to try some of the tools you’re listing here.
Good job and very best regards!
Clayton
October 11th, 2007 at 7:19 am
I use securezip which isn’t on the list and is also free.
http://www.securezip.com
AES 256 bit encrypted .zip files
October 11th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Any recommendations for a program which I can encrypt things on a USB stick and not require admin access to install or access the file? Truecrypt requires a driver which requires admin access.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:37 am
I forgot to say that I’m using BlowFish Advanced CS, from the pen-drive. It works flawlessly and it’s free as well!
Clayton
October 11th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
The list could be much more complete. No mention of leading utilities like TrueCrypt, DriveCrypt, BestCrypt, or Password Safe. No offense, but something tells me this list was assembled in haste and not by a crypto expert.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Sarah Dean has FREE encryption programs for both Desktop PC’s and Pocket PCs (windows mobile 5). Ive used both with great success, and each has dozens of popular encryption algorithms (AES, Blowfish, etc) you can pick from. URL is w-w-w-sdean12-dot-org
October 12th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Quantum COmputing will render ALL these encryption algorithms useless…… but, Quantum Encryption will save us and the cycle starts all over again…..
October 12th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Hi I am looking for a tool that will allow me to limit the time or lifespan of a file… for example a word document that will self “corrupt” after 90 days…
thanks
October 12th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I am disappointed because it is so hard to find a good, free (or even cheap) PGP email encryption tool. There are lots of encryption progs (dozens and dozens for encrypting files, but there are a number of programs that encrypt email and attachments too), but except for GPG none use the OpenPGP standard. I don’t get it. I have no use for a program that encrypts my email with a proprietary and untested algorithm.
10 years ago you could download the free version of PGP and it included a plug-in for Outlook, but not anymore. So I’m sure there’s an untapped market for such a program.
Why do companies put so much work into writing (shareware and commercial) proprietary encryption programs when they could be tapping into a much larger market writing PGP software instead?
October 13th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Anyone…?
A way to limit a file’s lifetime?
Can I send someone a file and have it self corrupt after a certain time?
October 13th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Please note that Tor won’t encrypt your communications. It creates a secure tunnel to the net via other people’s computers but when the communications exits and goes to a website or wherever, it’s nto encrypted. Someone could still sniff your traffic at the exit point.
October 13th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
These are indeed very useful tools for encrypting data. I am a particular user of OpenSSH and VPN tools, as they helped me to truly secure communication across the channels between two ends.
October 14th, 2007 at 3:27 am
I would just like to reply to Travis’ comments above - Just note that I have studied advanced mathematics and information security at university, I do not think that there will be advances that will negate the importance of large prime number encryption in the near future - however it has already been proven that with a low number of bits in the key that things can be cracked…. I just feel that there is so much money and research about computing prime numbers at the present moment, that a numerical / functional approach that surpasses the current methods of detecting and testing prime numbers will soon be found that can mean that other methods become necessary.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Comments like “faster computers will invalidate encryption” must be coming from people who don’t know much about encryption.
There is such a thing as theoretically unbreakable encryption schemes.
No amount of computation, work, or guessing can POSSIBLY break them. They are IMPOSSIBLE to crack.
Looks like faster computers are meaningless.
December 29th, 2007 at 9:07 am
No amount of computation, work, or guessing can POSSIBLY break them. They are IMPOSSIBLE to crack.
January 27th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Sorry guys, But apparently we all need go to rent / acquire a copy of “Sneakers”.
One of the things missing from the discussion is the concept of quantum decryption, this basically makes the mathematics and the beautiful work done, - well - obsolete, from a true privacy standard.
http://aranea.zuavra.net/index.php/40/ - This is a layman’s discussion but he hits the central point, the age of general cryptography has probably been over for a couple of years now.
Unfortunately, for those who can afford the technology - there are “No more secrets”
March 23rd, 2008 at 11:33 am
hi eveybody.i ve been working on this project for long long time.i have a text (a) encoded into text(b).is there any software which can show the encryption method or formula?please help
May 7th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Information storage and network product solutions for us the end-user customers.
Storage devices retain data even when the computer is turned off.
These are the main types of mass storage:
Floppy disks : Relatively slow and have a small capacity, but they are portable, inexpensive, and universal.
Hard disks : Very fast and with more capacity than floppy disks, but also more expensive. Some hard disk systems are portable (removable cartridges), but most are not.
Optical disks : Unlike floppy and hard disks, which use electromagnetism to encode data, optical disk systems use a laser to read and write data. Optical disks have very large storage capacity, but they are not as fast as hard disks. In addition, the inexpensive optical disk drives are read-only. Read/write varieties are expensive.
Tapes : Relatively inexpensive and can have very large storage capacities, but they do not permit random access of data.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:10 am
There is one more FREE encryption software that wasn’t mentioned - Rohos mini. I think it was left out unmerited. Rohos Mini Drive creates hidden and encrypted partition. You work with the files on the hidden partition without opening a special program. Those who have megabytes of sensitive files and seriously concerned with a data security, cannot imagine their USB flash without the hidden volume that is created using this tool.
It doesn’t require Administrator Privileges to open password protected USB drive partition!
August 26th, 2008 at 2:49 am
u made a great list here. some of the wrriten above, has great effect.
I might send u more tools to use
September 14th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Love the list u gave us.
keep on working hard my friend
July 25th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Thanks a lot
July 30th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Thanks for sharing with us..very informative and useful